christmas

Candy Cane Cookies

Merry Christmas beauties! I made this post just in time! I’ve been baking like crazy over here and I’m just about done! Tomorrow I’m going to make an ugly sweater cake. Stay tuned to my Instagram to see how that turns out.

Anyway, about these candy cane cookies! So adorable, right?! My Aunt Lynn usually makes them every year for our family but since Covid…. you know…. I decided I would try to make them! I think they turned out ok but not sure if they taste exactly like my Aunts. Oh well! We’ll make do. They are actually pretty simple to make, the dough is great and easy to handle. The tough part is twisting and shaping into candy canes and making them all the same size. As you will see below, it’s not perfect but I don’t care! They bake up pretty good so just do the best you can.

I’ve heard that some people use almond extract in the dough, instead of the peppermint but for these I wanted them to be really minty just like a candy cane! Plus, I already baked another cookie with almond flavor so I didn’t want 2 cookies tasting the same. I only made 4 different Christmas cookies this year so we needed some variety.

All right, let’s get going so you can make these in time! Go ahead and start your ovens.

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
Red food coloring
Crushed candy canes + tablespoon granulated sugar

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat butter and sugar until smooth. Add in eggs and both extracts and beat until incorporated. Slowly add in flour mixture until dough forms.

Remove half the dough and put in plastic wrap and in the fridge. With the remaining dough, beat in red food coloring until you reach desired color. Then place that in plastic wrap and in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

In a small bowl, stir crushed candy canes and granulated sugar. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. After the dough has chilled, take about a teaspoon of each color of dough and roll on a clean, dry surface (you may need some flour if the dough is sticky). Make sure both colors are the same length, then twist and form into a candy cane. Place on prepared cookie sheet. Fill cookie sheet with 6-8 cookies. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just beginning to brown on the edges.

As soon as the come out of the oven, sprinkle with the candy cane mixture. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Continue until you use all of the dough.

Store covered at room temp. Enjoy!

Again, just do your best and have fun with it! Have a very Merry Christmas!

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

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Yesterday I made regular, tasty, melt in your mouth shortbread cookies. Today I bring you chocolate shortbread cookies!Just as delicious, still Christmasy and perfect for your holiday cookie exchange. Change it up with sprinkles and a drizzle of chocolate and make someone smile 🙂

So go ahead and start those ovens! Another cookie is ready to be made…

Note: Recipe can easily be doubled if needed

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Sprinkles, chocolate, other decorations of your choice

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and cocoa. In another bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until soft and creamy. Slowly beat in flour mixture until dough is formed.

Place dough in plastic wrap and roll into a log. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Using a sharp knife, cut log into 1/4 inch cookies and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Allow to cool a bit on cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, dip in chocolate and decorate with sprinkles. Or decorate by melting white chocolate and drizzling that over top. Enjoy!

Store covered at room temp or in the fridge.

Christmas Shortbread Cookies

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Happy holidays everyone! Christmas sure did sneak up on us, didn’t it! It’s a week away! To kick off the baking season, I did these super simple, melt in your mouth shortbread cookies. They are so delicious and perfect for a cookie exchange because you can decorate them however you want with sprinkles or dip in chocolate and then they look like different cookies! So quick and easy to make, I hope you like these as much as I do!

So, go start your ovens, blast some Christmas music and let’s bake!

Note: You can easily double this recipe and store the dough in plastic wrap for later use. Also note that you should refrigerate the dough for a bit to make it more manageable so allow that extra time when you start baking.

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter at room temp
3/4 cup powdered sugar
Sprinkles, chocolate or other decorations of your choice.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour and cornstarch. In another large  bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth. Slowly add in the flour mixture until dough is formed. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Roll dough in hands by tablespoonfull and drop on prepared cookie sheet. Press with fork dipped in powdered sugar so it won’t stick. Add sprinkles if using. Bake for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool a bit on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store covered in the fridge or at room temp. Enjoy!

M&M Pudding Cookies!

Perfect for Christmas but really, you can use any color M&M’s in these delicious pudding cookies! I found a similar recipe for these on Betty Crocker’s website and thought I would give them a try as part of my Christmas cookie platter! I’m so glad I did. They are so pretty and literally melt in your mouth. Santa is definitely going to eat a whole bunch of these when he visits our house tonight 😉

We have no time! It’s Christmas Eve! Hurry up and make these cookies!

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter at room temp
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 box vanilla instant pudding mix
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups M&M’s

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together butter and both sugars until creamy and smooth. Beat in pudding mix. Beat in eggs, one at a time until combined. Add vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in M&M’s.

Drop on baking sheet by rounded tablespoons. Bake for 9-11 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container in room temp. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Butter Cookies

Merry Christmas everyone! Holy cow does time fly as you get older. So many more things to do, stuff to buy, food to make and cookies to bake. Being a kid is so much better 😆 Anyway… here we are, the weekend before and we are starting off with these beauties. Actually I already made rum balls, you can find that recipe here.

These cookies are so pretty and perfect for gift giving because they last longer than chewy cookies. However, your arms and hands will get a work out! Piping this dough is really tough, but so worth it in the end!

Here is how they look before they are baked…

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What you will need:

Cookie sheets lined with parchment paper
Piping bag with big star tip (I used a Wilton 1M)

1 cup unsalted butter at room temp
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-2 teaspoons milk
Chocolate and sprinkles for decorating (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar and salt until combined. Add in yolks and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Slowly add in flour until just combined, adding milk to reach piping consistency. Dough is thick.

Add dough to piping bag and pipe small circles onto prepared baking sheet. Refrigerate at least 10 minutes so cookies do not spread while baking.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until just beginning to brown on the edges. Allow to cool for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dip in melted chocolate and decorate with sprinkles as desired!

Store in an airtight container either in the fridge or at room temp. Enjoy!

Makes 25-30 cookies

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Super Easy Fruit Cake

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Super easy fruit cake! Oh my gosh I can’t believe I finally made one! I’ve never liked fruit cake before, I think it’s the green cherries that some people put in theirs. I’m sorry but ew. So I left those out of mine. I also left out raisins. I also left out rum and I wish now that I added it. Fruit cake is still a meh for me. It’s good, but not delicious! I don’t know if I’ll ever make it again. If I do, I’ll let you know and blog about it because I would change some things.

I know some people really like fruit cake, but to me it tastes like something you’d eat at your great grandma’s house. It just has a 1950’s feel. LOL I don’t know it’s so weird to me. But I wanted to share with you all that I made this so if you are interested in making one, too here you go!

What you will need:

1 loaf pan greased and lined with parchment paper

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)
10 oz. pitted dates, chopped
1/2 cup halved maraschino cherries
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees fahrenheit. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, stir together the nuts, dates and cherries. Set aside. In a small bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Stir in vanilla.

Pour flour mixture into fruit mixture and stir until combined. Pour egg mixture into the fruit and flour mixture until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about an hour.

Allow to cool 10 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely on a wire rack.

Store covered at room temp. Enjoy!

It’s definitely pretty!

Grinch Cookies

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How many times have you seen these cookies on Pinterest?! I have so many times and I finally got around to making them myself. I’m so glad I did because I’m adding them to my annual cookie list! They are so delicious and easy to make, not to mention super adorable. I mean…. who doesn’t like the story behind “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?” In the book and movie they say his heart was 2 sizes too small. But after he realizes Christmas doesn’t come from a store, it grew 3 sizes! All the feels 🙂

There are many ways to make these, including the little heart detail. So here I will just give you what I did and hope that you get inspired to make these for all the “grinches” in your life. Or, just to add some festivity to your holiday cookie exchange. Here we go…

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

1 box vanilla cake mix
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Green food coloring
1 cup powdered sugar (for rolling)
2 tablespoons corn starch (for rolling)
Heart sprinkles (I used red heart sprinkles that I found at Target)
Light corn syrup (about 1 teaspoon)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. In a large bowl, beat together cake mix, butter, eggs, vegetable oil and food coloring (I used 6 drops of McCormick food coloring and could have used more). The batter will be thick. In another bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and corn starch.

Roll dough into 1 to 1.5 inch thick balls and roll in powdered sugar mixture. REALLY roll in there! You have plenty of the mixture so roll away 🙂 Place on prepared cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are out of the oven, take a toothpick and corn syrup and use that to adhere the heart sprinkles to the cookies. Once cooled, cover and store at room temperature. Enjoy!

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Merry Christmas!

Snickerdoodles

Need an easy recipe for a dessert RIGHT NOW? Here it is! You probably already have all of these ingredients and the dough doesn’t need any chilling time! Yay!

These cookies are the perfect treat with your afternoon coffee or tea OR as an addition to your holiday cookie plate 😉

So… let’s get started making the BEST and EASIEST Snickerdoodle!

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons sugar (for rolling)
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (for rolling)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs and beat until combined. Slowly beat in flour mixture until just combined.

In a small bowl, stir together the sugar and cinnamon. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place on prepared baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. Enjoy!

Note: Makes about 4 dozen cookies so feel free to halve this recipe. Store covered at room temp.

Peppermint Brownies

Another perfect Christmas recipe for the books! These brownies go perfect with hot chocolate on a cold winter night while decorating the Christmas tree or watching a movie. Maybe even leave one out for Santa on Christmas Eve! I’m sure he would appreciate it with a glass of milk 😉 Gooey chocolate with a hint of peppermint. Heavenly.

What you will need:

8 x 8 square bake pan lined with parchment paper

6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate coarsely chopped
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
Dash of salt
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 cup Andes mint chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Combine the butter and chocolate in a glass bowl and melt in microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after each time. Pour into a larger bowl and whisk in both sugars. Once cooled to room temperature, whisk in eggs and both extracts until combined. Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and cocoa powder. Stir into the wet ingredients until you still see some flour (you do not want to overmix the batter). Stir in the mint chips. Pour batter evenly into prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Allow to cool completely before cutting into squares. Store covered at room temp. Enjoy!

Peppermint Meltaways

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If you follow me on Instagram, you know I always post the pictures of what I’m about to blog about next. So… I hope you all were waiting for this recipe! Seriously, THIS is the cookie of Christmas 2017 for me. They literally melt in your mouth and peppermint just has that holiday flavor you crave this time of year. Ugh, I ate way too many already and it’s not even December. But as always, not only do these taste great, they are super simple to make, too. Definitely add these to your holiday cookie exchange/platter/dessert table because they are not worth passing up 🙂

Go get your aprons on… it’s about to feel like Christmas in your house (and mouth) 😉

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

For the frosting:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup crushed candy canes

In a bowl, whisk together flour and cornstarch. In another bowl, beat butter, powdered sugar and extract until smooth. Slowly add in flour mixture until dough is formed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Shape dough into 1 inch balls and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 9-10 minutes or until the bottoms are beginning to brown. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the frosting, beat butter until smooth. Add in milk, extract and powdered sugar and beat until you reach desired consistency. Spread on each cookie (I just used the back of a spoon) and sprinkle with crushed candy canes. Enjoy!

Makes about 2 dozen cookies. Store covered.

Happy Baking!